ON THE ROAD AGAIN

 Time to meet with the girls one more time before the wedding.  One month today!!!  We each have our tasks and April has a million loose ends to tie up.  Myles is going off with Bradley for a couple of pre wedding bro days.  Bradley is totally respecting Myles's wish for no big party with booze and strippers.  He was brought up right...not his style at all.  I think they are having a sporty few days in Whistler.

I am taking my own food to April's.  At least some of it.  I need to lose 112 pounds before the wedding so it will be severe Dr. Atkins.  And I will def have to keep track of my blood sugar.  No more lows for me ever again.  That was the worst feeling ever.  EVER.  Never again.  With jardiance on board now I am still figuring out how many carbs I can get away with, I need to keep an eye.  When I hit the 112 pounds down I shall stop.  Lol!!!

Monte and I went to Nanaimo yesterday.  We had a fantastic day...we don't always.  Sometimes it is difficult to say the right thing or conversely not say the wrong thing to a highly functioning autistic Tourettes person.  I am sure getting better though.  Blow ups don't happen often now.  And yesterday was just a sweet calm awesome day.  We listened to our fave music and had a bit of conversation.  It was really nice.

I was on my way to Lens Crafters.  Boy I hate my eyes being messed with.  I hate it so much I can hardly let April, who has her certificate in make up artistry, touch my eyes.  Have you ever had that poof test to see what pressure your eyes are?  Yeah, thats not happening with me.  I get my lids shut before the air even gets to my eyes, (reflex). I have really high pressure in my eyes and apparently that makes them super sensitive.  Never mind the fact that I almost have a heart attack every time.  Scares the hell out of me.  The dr is forced to guess what my pressure is or put dilating numbing drops in my eyes and test it differently.  But I lied and said I was driving so he couldn't do it.  I have to go back for that when someone can drive me.  Sure.

He wants me to go to an ophthalmologist.  I objected.  What the heck is he going to do that you can't? I ask him.  Well he says that they can see and understand even more with what is going on.  Then what? I ask.  What difference can they make?  Well he says casually, almost innocently, they can give you injections in your eyes...he only got that far and, again a reflex, NO EFFING WAY!!!!!  NEVER HAPPEN!!!.  He laughed!  So I do not see any point in seeing an ophthalmologist and I think I have already said here that I practice being blind.  I unload the dishwasher, wipe the counters down, put stuff in my bedroom, all with my eyes shut.  Mind you my room looks like it.

Picking out new glasses was fun!  I wanted fancy horn rim black glasses.  I love the style.  I saw a lady on Judge Judy with the most awesome amazing glasses.  Now I know I can't get extreme glasses like that but a reasonable facsimile would work.  I will put a pic of those glasses.  I took a pic of her.  They are so awesome!!!  I showed them to Monte and I won't repeat what he said!!!  I have already sworn once in this post!

Thats it for today.  Have a great one and TFL and TTYL

AREN'T THEY FABULOUS???!!!!!

LOSING SOMEONE IS AN ODD EXPERIENCE

 Losing Bill has not been what I expected it to be like.  I knew there would be heart wrenching grief and loneliness.  I was prepared for that.  And I knew people would be so kind, empathetic and considerate of my feelings.  It was an amazing gut wrenching experience. I was lucky that I had eight weeks to get jiggy with it all and be able to have our last words together, nothing left unsaid.

We reached the ten year anniversary last October.  A whole decade has passed without him.  But something quite odd has developed.

It is just now sinking in that I will actually, for real, never see him again.  It has taken this long for the finality of it to hit me.

You know when you hear serious things on the news like impending war, or impending anything doom like and negative, you kind of go into "well it isn't going to happen".  Maybe not consciously but definitely in the background of your thinking.  I think that is for survival and comfort.  

I think I have been in that Lala land for a decade.  Now it is actually coming to the surface of my brain that it IS real and I really am never going to see him again.  Oh, I obviously have known that but it just seems to have become very very real to me lately.  

I guess this is a very convoluted dumb way of saying I am missing him more now than I even did at the start...or at least it is different.  I just want him back.  He still feels so alive and real to me, he is just somewhere else.

I have given this a lot of thought over the last while, too hard to miss the feelings actually!  I feel that maybe what I am needing is some kind of closure on that life he and I had.  I have an inkling, after a lot of introspection, that I need to go back to Maui to say goodbye. (maybe after Trump is over)  That is where I really discovered the true blue Spod.  We had so much time just the two of us with no distractions and it was such an amazing cathartic experience for both of us.  Magical.  Maybe a family reunion...those that can.  If I spend some final time there to say goodbye to him properly it may help this finality into a better spot.  I think I will put the suggestion out there.

I have to give credit here to my awesome niece, Jeni, my brother's daughter.  She is the one that inadvertently put the thought in my head.  It resonated.  My next project!!!

Well that's enough!!!!  I am crying like a baby here.  If anyone walks into my room I will have some splainin to do!!!

As usual all you people that read my blog out there are more valuable to me than you will ever ever know.  Thanks For Listening and TTYL

be prepared....you will start reading lots of Maui prep stuff now!!!  lol!!

DRAWBACK TO RETIREMENT

Here we are...Easter.  When you are retired and living far away from family, holidays mean nothing.  In fact other than garbage day becoming inconveniently moved or skipped, a retired isolated person may not even know a holiday is imminent or has gone by.  If I went to church I would at least be clued in to any Jesus oriented holiday but I don't go to church.  If I take the opportunity at commercial time on tv to go to the loo or kitchen, I don't see all those holiday forward ads.  If distant rellies took the opportunity to travel and come to visit on holidays I would be clued in.  But in the seven years I have lived here that has happened only twice I think.

But having said that, on this Easter Stan and Antonia are going to be in town visiting friends and her brother who happens to live here.  And on Easter Monday they invited me to breakfast at Pesky's (Pescadores, a local fantastic little restaurant).  Until Stan called me a couple of days ago I didn't even know it was Easter!

We did have a first today.  We tested Floppy's loyalty and smarts.  We leashed him up, grabbed a ball, poop bags and a walker and Ange and I took him to a nearby giant field.  And we released the hound!  We had faith that he would not take off....and he didn't!  he behaved perfectly.  Ange and I even got a little exercise out of the expedition!!  My walker helps a lot!  I could go double the distance before crap started to hurt.  I am so happy!!

Tomorrow I tackle the back deck.  It is a disgraceful mess.  So much stuff has to go and some of it is going to be hard to toss.  There are two Costco long tables covered and stacked with kitchen gear.  There is also a seven foot high Ikea cabinet with many shelves full of kitchen gear as well.  Sigh.  Them thar days is over.  No more big fancy meals.  Time to box the stuff up and have diabetes people pick it all up and pass it along.  Dang it...there is some super good stuff out there.  Oh well, such is downsizing.

But...that being said, on Monday after the awesome breakfast I will be eating with my bro and sister in law, a very predictable Easter dinner will be made.  Appie is a shared bag of Funions.  We then move on to traditional scalloped potatoes a la Betty Crocker.  From there we will imbibe still crunchy steamed green beans and peaches and cream Friendly Giant (ooops..I mean Green Giant) corn and then for the star of the show...an apple glazed ham.  I just discovered that there is no apple jelly in this ridiculous town.  So marmalade it will have to be.  Then for a Lucious dessert we have salted caramel weird bars and the same weird bars but chocolate.  

I didn't raise the pig to make the ham.  I didn't make the marmalade for the glaze.  I didn't grow and cultivate the potatoes or milk a cow for the scallop.  I didn't grow the veggies and I didn't bake those stupid cookie things.  We have become a redirected society.  We took our precious time we used to have and filled it with the ever revolving work wheel so we can buy that bigger house and pay someone to be a substitute parent.  Kinda sad.  Especially for us old ones who remember those days.  I remember lopping off the head of Mr. Big, our pet chicken, and eating him.  I remember picking peas with socks on our hands because it was so cold outside before school.  I am not saying it was better back then, just nostalgic.

Plus, and this is the biggest plus of all, I don't lift a finger to get all that food into our house.  I get it all delivered to my front door.  So I don't even walk up and down the aisles of the grocery store!  And if I need something from a different store...I send Monte.  He is an ace shopper and he loves it.  He is so like his dad!!!

Speaking of which I had an order delivered a couple minutes ago and I am going to go and partake of some of it.  I am starving.  There are ciabatta buns and surimi (fake crab)....a perfect one meal a day meal.

That's it for this Easter Sunday.  I am mindful of the sacred sight we saw in Jerusalem where supposedly Jesus rose from the dead.  Most interesting.  Have a lovely Easter.  TFL and TTYL

THE MOST AMAZING BOX ARRIVED IN THE MAIL WITH MY NAME ON IT!!!

An approximately 12x12x3 inch box, all wrapped up in brown paper (my fave wrapping paper, it's so mysterious) arrived at our door and it was heavy!  I saw the return address was Aryn.  What???  She always tells me if something is coming.

This parcel was so timely.  I was in a pretty bad funk, not my usual state of mind.  I rarely am in an unhappy state but some things had happened and I just wasn't up to dealing with it all that day.  But just the sight of this mysterious parcel got me to stop boohooing in my head.  (double shovel list)

I put that sucker on the table and ripped it open.  The box opened like a pizza box opens.  And my eyes almost fell out of my head!!! Honestly I couldn't believe what I was looking at!!!

This box held everything I hold dear!  There were two little bags of cheeses...very significant to me.  The reason why is explained under the picture that is in the following post.  There was a wee tiny bottle of southern comfort, also explained in that post.

I am a Campbell's tomato soup freak.  It's almost my fave food in the whole world.  Nothing beats hot hot tomato soup with crackers in it, thick and sludgy!!!  And there were four cans in there...plain, with basil and British Heinz (thank you Bradley!).

And there were crackers...not just one type but both my favourites...ritz and soda!  She knows me so so well. 

When asked, as we all are at times, what is your desert island one food you would take, I am really hard put to choose between tomato soup and potatoes.  I love potatoes in every way they can be eaten....but my go to fave are instant potatoes.  Geez do I ever love them and she put two flavours of instant potatoes in that box.  And to go with all that is a zip lock bag full of very bold coffee pods!  The only coffee I drink is super strong black coffee from my coffee pod maker.  And just a few minutes ago I was looking at the box again and lifted the coffee pods and lo and behold!!!! hiding under it was a wee tiny bottle of Fireball!!!  Thats about the only booze I really like to drink and never say no to!  A surprise!

Fireball is quite dear to me.  When Anton, the Russian student (friend of Monte's) stayed with me before moving back to Russia, he lived downstairs.  Under the stairs was a roughed in small room for storage.  He was helping me move stuff and I came across a bottle of fireball in an old cooler.  He said we should each take a swig whilst 'hiding' under the stairs, like naughty teenagers.  So we did and every time we happened to be down there at the same time we would nip under the stairs and take a swig..or two.

When the whole fam damily went camping one Canada Day weekend (twenty of us) we all brought our favourite whiskey and had a whiskey off. We voted for our fave.  I brought fireball..it IS whiskey after all.  And it came in second!!!!!

One last one here....a couple of xmases ago, after the family camping, a wonderful crazy niece sent me a quite large xmas present.  Upon opening it, it was a very large hollow plastic candy cane, full of tiny little fireballs.  I was tickled pink!!!

So a little bottle of fireball was very thoughtful.  The whole box was very thoughtful.

Accompanying it was a note:  A Moomy care package.  Love Aryn and B.

Of course I started to cry.  It was so thoughtful and timely.  I just couldn't believe it.   And I have already eaten a bag of cheesies and the Ritz crackers!  When I am finishing this post I am going to go drain the bottle of Fireball!!!  A toast to two incredibly thoughtful people!

Have a great day or two...TFL and TTYL

Pictures in the next post...hopefully!!!!

 

PUTTING THE PICS FIRST BUT HOPEFULLY THEY SHOW UP SECOND!!!

THESE ARE SIGNIFICANT BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT REPLACED CIGARETTES WHEN I QUIT SMOKING!

TUCKED IN UNDER THE BAG OF COFFEE PODS IS A WEE TINY BOTTLE OF SOUTHERN COMFORT!!  BACK WHEN I WAS ABOUT SIX MONTHS PREGNANT WITH ARYN, I WAS AT A PARTY AT MY FRIEND TED'S HOUSE.  I WAS A VERY UNHAPPY CAMPER IN MY LIFE RIGHT THEN AND I DRANK A WHOLE 26 ER OF SOUTHERN COMFORT!  WE DIDN'T KNOW YET THAT IT WAS BAD FOR BABY.  SO IF YOU THINK THERE IS SOMETHING A WEE BIT ODD ABOUT A CERTAIN CHILD OF MINE....WELL THERE IT IS!!!  (PLUS I SMOKED FIFTY CIGS A DAY.  POOR LITTLE MITE.)

 

HOW IS IT A SUPER SIMPLE ITEM CAN WRECK PORTIONS OF YOUR DAY?

 I am talking about my freaking new phone case.  I had one that was open face and on the back a flip flap for my credit cards.  It was super easy to use, fit in my bra nicely, not all bulky and silly.  I have had it for quite some time.  But (isn't there always a but...shovel list) every time something barely brushed past it, it would turn on.  And due to my settings which I am NOT changing, it often won't go off.  When I tuck it in to my bra it would turn on...and get hot.  So time for a new case with a cover, like a wee book.

When I went to Amazon I was shocked at the prices!!!  Phone cases used to go for ten to twenty bucks and the twenty ones were considered expensive.  Well now the majority of them are from 30 to 60!!!  What the hell???!!!

I knew what I was after...had them before.  I resigned myself to spending twenty.  Grrrrr...and it had to be light coloured so I could find it in my very disorganized chaotic house.  And then...there it was!!!  A kind of humble sparkle pink, exactly what I was after.  It even had extra stuff and room for paper money and receipts etc...  And I thought, this is it!!!!  If it's fifty then thats what I am paying.  I then looked at the price of this perfect case...nine....read that again...nine dollars.  I thought it was a mistake!!!!!  How?  Why?  I didn't trust the number so I went to the reviews and they raved about it.  Well then that's a done deal for sure.

It arrived the next day and it was exactly as described.  I transferred my cards over, popped the phone into the case and tried to get the inner magnet on the drop down flap to click.  Tried again.  And again.  Nope.  Took some little bit not necessary cards out to make it a tad thinner and I got it to snap shut.  But now, two days later, it keeps flapping open.  The magnet isn't  very strong.  

And there is a skinny strap on the backside that comes around and snaps into the receiving hole on the front.  That takes a three step squeeze here, push there and pinch up there before it snaps in.  Not only that, every time I shove it into my bra it all becomes unsnapped and flappy.  It is driving me nuts!  I don't think it's going to be long before I put the phone back in the old case, which I was smart enough to hang onto.  I have been very tempted to pitch the damned thing across the room.  That old adage....you get what you pay for keeps coming to mind.  Sigh.

I guess what amazes me is how something as simple, but necessary and in every inch of your life can have so much power over your day.  And once you give in, at least I am like this, to the negative, it grows exponentially out of control.  My mom taught me a million years ago that if you are busy and there is a ways to go before you can stop, no matter how tired you are, the moment you say you're tired,  you've lost. What little mojo you had left will disappear.  Once admitted it wins.

I watch lots of that show 'Naked and Afraid'.  The participants are definitely under the gun, thirsty, lack of easy sleep, hungry as hell and either way too hot or freezing.  And some of them just bitch and moan and whine about it.  Consequently you really are going to be hungry, tired, cold etc...Now and then, usually a male contestant I am sorry to say, will actually mention this to the negative Nancy that he has been paired off with.  Toughness is mental.  No doubt about it.

Well time to go eat something.  I have basically quit cooking dinners.  I eat way less that way.  So thats it for today's post.  TFL and TTYL

OKAY...THIS BLOGSPOT SUCKS. PICS FIRST AFTERALL....GRRRRRR

 

SPORTING MY OLD WEDDING GOWN

THE EXPLANATION OF THIS SHOT IS IN THE FOLLOWING POST

SO REALISTIC!!!!!!

ON THE WINERY TOUR BUS WITH THE GIRLS

THERE SHE IS WITH ALL HER MYLESESSSS

JESS AND APRIL PLAYING DRESS UP WAY BACK IN THE DAY IN FRONT OF OUR BIG HOUSE DOORS

IT'S ALL OVER

 Well April's bachelorette was EPIC!!!  OMG!!!  I think she was almost overwhelmed by the love, the food, games, gifts and surprises.  There is no doubt they had a blast.  She still isn't over it!!  What an amazing bunch of girls!!

Aryn took April to the event.  But before getting there Aryn was taking her to lunch in a special British pub near Yellow Point, not far from where the giant mansion the girls had rented for the week end was situated.  And unbeknownst to April, Monte and I headed down there and got there before them to surprise April.  So we were sitting there as they walked through the door and shocked her!!!  We then proceeded to have a fantastic lunch and a wonderful visit.  It was perfect.

I will mention one thing that happened at the party. I had her take my wedding dress.  She has it stored away and her friends and her use to dress up in it for  fun.  The first morning the girls made her put it on and then come down the elaborate curved stairs to fourteen girls, all dressed like Myles with masks with Myles's face on them held over their faces.  They were all standing in a row on an upper balcony, dead silent and staring down at her.  Her reaction was so extreme!!!  It totally unnerved her!  And from that point on 'Myles' went everywhere they went!  It was so funny!!! I will attempt to put a pic on at the end here.

I buy assured loading tickets for the ferry.  I do not want to be stuck in lineups waiting for a ferry with a one or two sailing wait if I was unable to get a reservation or if there is an emergency with one of the kids.  The books of ten have always been somewhat expensive.  Right now the ferry costs about sixty five bucks one way.  The book of ten has just gone up to 180 per ticket!  Crikey!!!!  I was thinking I may have to borrow the sum from my LOC.

But...I went into the bank to close out a dormant chequing account I had at that same bank in Kamloops.  I got notice if I didn't do so by such and such a date, any money would go to the government.  I thought there was probably about thirty dollars in there.  So I popped into the bank to have the account activated and transferred to Port.  And guess what?  There was a nice whack of money in that account!!!  There was just enough to pay for the assured loading booklet!!!  Made my day it did!!!  And to think the government might have got hold of it!!

Ange's birthday was a few days ago.  All she wanted was a turkey dinner.  She hadn't had a turkey dinner for quite a while.  So I had her invite a friend and I found a grocery store in town that had frozen turkeys and off I went into mode dinner party!

So I set the table the day before....to keep people from messing the table up!  And this year I decided I would not be frantic about it but organized and leisurely.  I had ordered everything I needed a couple of days before and kept the stuff in the grocery bags instead of putting all the stuff in various places and then not finding them easily later.  I will be doing that again!  I kept my kitchen chair cleared off, no stuff stored in the oven that had to be taken out sitting on the chair.  My butt was going to intermittently be parked on it!  I didn't start cooking and prepping until after I put the turkey in the turkey roaster, although I did make the stuffing the night before.  By dinner time I wasn't frazzled or tired.  Even my back and tailbone weren't too bad!  And the best part of a turkey dinner????? the smell of that stuffed bird roasting!!!!

  But I will admit that even though it was pleasant and relaxing compared to what I normally am like making a big dinner, it wasn't as much fun.  I love the three day circus culminating in pure exhaustion and brain deadness that follows chaos.

Thats it for this post.  I hope all is well with everyone.  TFL and TTYL

I am going to make a separate post with a couple pictures.  This stupid blogspot is NOT    WORKING!!!!!